A $2,000 Car!Tata Motors announced that it will begin accepting orders for its $1,980 Nano “people’s car” on April 9th. (No relation to the Apple iPod Nano.) Too bad it’s only available in India. [Consumer Reports]

Yeah, it’s only available in India because it can’t pass US safety standards – no airbags for one example – or US emission standards. It’s basically an enclosed go-cart. With US requirements there’s no way anyone could build a car at anywhere near that price point.

@Vanilla5: You’re assuming they mean as a car. If they made an electric version limited to 30 mph they could sell it as a “neighborhood vehicle” without meeting crash standards. Or if they made a three-wheeled version they could sell it as a motorcycle.

North American needs a “quadricycle” vehicle category like all other nations have nowadays, that way we can enjoy these great commuter vehicles. You don’t need all sorts of safety features for a vehicle that can’t drive on the highway (or much over 60 km/h for that matter).

Driving one of those in Detroit would be a deathwish. Between the rabid “buy american” folks, and the 16 year olds texting while driving that new H2 that daddy bought them, it would be a guaranteed that being behind the wheel of that tiny tin can would shorten your life span.

Well, that’s true. But, for me, I’d drive this to work and back, and to pick up groceries and similar stuff, that’s all. That’s about 95% of my driving, the rest I could either buy a big car for, or, more likely, I’d just rent one when I need it (about once a month at most). Of course, I try to live within a 20 or 30 minute drive of my work, and while I do use the highway to get to work right now, it would only add another 5 minutes to my commute to take city roads.

I can travel to at least 3 similarly sized cities as my own reasonably without using highways at all (reasonably being that it would only add 5 or 10 minutes to the travel time).

@slim150: Hate to break it to you, but a lot of modern cars are using “structural adhesives.” Not exclusively, but in many locations where spot welding would have been used in the past. They’re especially useful for joining aluminum.

@slim150: I watched a episode of Newtons Apple many moons ago, and they had two pieces of steel held together with glue and two held together with welds/rivets. They swung a sand bag at each. The welded/riveted one failed and broke apart. The glued one held. IIRC, the glue forms a even microscopic bond and becomes part of the two pieces of metal, so it helps spread the force. The welding/riveting is an uneven bond, and creates low and high strength points, which can lead to failure.

Stop dreaming if you want one of these in the U.S….It’s not gonna happen.

Consider: The Smart Car was available in Europe for almost 10 years before anyone could buy one here.It was designed by Mercedes (and Swatch) ,has a much more powerful engine and meets U.S. crash standards.And it still took almost a decade before it hit our shores.From what I have read,the Tata would never pass crash and emissions requirements here without big $$$ spent on design changes,which defeats the whole purpose.
Even IF it could be sold here,would anyone buy it ? Not likely.We Americans like our cars a lot more plush than this thing.

However…There is at least one Indian econo-cruiser that made it to the U.S- The Bajaj 3 wheeler.If you want slow and cheap,this is it. It was street legal up until late last year,but now cannot be legally sold.

People keep mentioning commuter vehicles and not having to go on the highway and blah blah… where I live, it’s very common to have to drive on the highway to get to your job. Well, I suppose you could just instantly uproot yourself and move somewhere closer, except now your house isn’t worth anything so you can’t sell it…

I have mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, it’s great that companies are tailoring their products to what very low income people can afford & delivering items and services they can use. There’s a huge market for actually useful things at prices most of the people in the world can afford.

On the other hand, thinking of all the pollution that’s going to come from thousands (millions?) of new cars being built & operated makes me cringe. But the other other hand, maybe it’s better than operating older, very inefficient vehicles, or packing dozens of people into a minibus. And if someone in India can now get to work or take care of their family now that they have a little car, who am I to judge?

So I go back and forth. There are probably a lot of unintended consequences from this kind of thing, and it’s hard to weigh in without being confronted with my own priveleged position. I hope the good consequences outweigh the bad.

@pecan pi: It wasn’t at all unusual, 20 or 30 years ago, for 2-car families to have 1 nice car and 1 econobox, that the drivers (usually mom and dad) traded off as necessary — dad would drive the econobox to the train station so mom could ferry the kids around in the safer, bigger car, unless dad had to drive out of town and take the nicer car, in which case mom would use the econobox for in-town errands that day.

We’ve considered emulating this model — rarely do my husband and I have to leave town on highways on the same day. He works 3 miles away — he can bike it in 20 minutes — and I do have to use a highway to get to work, but not every day, and most of our errands are close by and don’t require going above 35 mph.

We’ve also considered a Vespa as our second “car” … but the law is sooooooooo picky about not driving infants around on Vespas. :P

@Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): Have you looked into electric “neighborhood vehicles”? They’re kind of golf cart like, but many are fully enclosed, and in many states they’re street legal for roads with speed limits up to 35 mph. (Although I probably wouldn’t drive one on a road with a speed limit over 25, since a 35 mph limit usually means cars are going at least 40.)

for $2k I would totally buy this and drive this. My ‘commute’ now is 7 minutes on 35 mph quasi-rural/suburban streets. This thing is perfect. Probably only have to fill up only once every other month, instead of the once a month I have to now.

Eyebrows McGee (on Twitter: LPetelle): I would love to have a Vespa as a vehicle to zip around in, just to go to the store or whatnot…but I don’t think I could get one for less than I could a bicycle…and I don’t even have a bicycle right now, so I need a bicycle to be cheaper than the mini amount of gas I use to go 10 minutes down the street. :-P

floraposte: The Wiki link has a period at the end, FYI…anyone wanting to click for Twike needs to take the . off the end of the url.